I Totally Ate This

"Do you ever wait and wait and wait to eat… and then suddenly you have a meeting and you have that feeling that you’ll know you’ll be sick if you don’t eat SOMETHING –but there is absolutely NO time to go get something? These casseroles work in a pinch. Really."

That's the email I got today from Chef Gina. You may remember Gina from the French Onion Cassarole recipe.

Cheddar Curd Crunch

Preheat oven to 350.

Ingredients:
1 handful of Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips
1 blob of lowfat cottage cheese (any size curd will do)

Crunch up the Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips and place on plate. Lick orange chip crumbs off fingers. Top crunched chips with a blob of cottage cheese. Stir around on the plate, turn off the oven and scoot up to it, crack the door and warm your hands while eating this delicious delicacy.

**Chef's Note: These chips HAVE NO MSG! Seriously, this is like a “healthy” recipe now.

Christmas 2009 Photo Extravaganza

Remember how this one used to look like Benjamin Button? I think she's filled out quite nicely.

I gave pretty much the most awesome presents this year. Bone Senior got The Whiz.

Her hub got this magnificent t-shirt.
Li'l Mil got Cars. Lots and lots of Cars.

Oh, and also this little gem, cause I'm the coolest aunt ever.
And Nano got snotty crumbs all over me.

Look, It's Not a Square!

Until last night, I could only crochet things that were in a square shape, or a variation of a square. Ok pretty much I could only do blankets and scarves. Lots and lots of scarves. Until last night.

That's right bee-yatches, I MADE THAT! It needs a few embellishments, but at least I figured out what to do with the hole in the top.

'Tis the Season for Pooing in the Potty

"SASHIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I WENT POOPY!!!"

Those were the words screamed at me by an excited Li'l Mil last week after he'd sucessfully pooed in the potty. After being bribed with a new Lightning McQueen by Bone Senior, and after the promise of a new Sally car hand delivered by Aunt Sashie if he'd go poop in the potty.

Bone Junior: You DID!!!!! Did you go in the potty?

Li'l Mil: YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!! (pause) You bring me Sally now, right??

I wish I got that excited every time I pooed in the potty. Then again, I probably WOULD get that excited if Bone Senior bribed ME with new Lightning McQueen too...

And just to erase the mental image of me pooing in the potty, please to enjoy my annual self-centered Christmas card:

O Come Let Us Adore Me!

My Belly is Happy

Just when I thought my day couldn't get any better, the UPS man arrived and announced, "I have Tastykakes for you!"

Blink. Blink. Whhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Tastykakes? In UTAH?? No way.

"Shut. Up. ARE THOSE FOR ME! ARE THOSE TASTYKAKES FOR ME! SHUT UP! SHUT UP RIGHT NOW!"

Not only were those Tastykakes for me, but they were even better than I expected because they were packaged in this:
Seriously! Do my friends know me or what. Thank you thank you thank you Lady for the wonderful Christmas present!!

Mission Accomplished

Now I will officially be the coolest aunt ever.

Holiday Recipe

Brought to you courtesy of one of my new favorite co-workers, Gina. This recipe came about as a result of our mid-morning-munchies. And yes, I can attest to its deliciousness.

French Onion Casserole

Preheat oven to 350.

Ingredients:
Lay’s Potato Chips from the end of the bag
1 scoop of French Onion Dip with MSG

Mix chip crumbs and dip together in a cup, turn off the oven and scoot up to it, crack the door and warm your hands while eating this delicious delicacy with a spoon, straight out of the cup.

How I Spent My Thanksgiving Vacation

- Eating special chocolate Sarah Pie made just for me by Maggie, aka Erin's mom, aka Martha Stewart Incarnate. It was pretty much the most amazing chocolate pie I've ever eaten. It tasted like hot fudge in a pie crust, although much less runny than actual hot fudge. And I ate the entire remaining pie in about one day.

- Crocheting...a lot. I have a lot of scarves now. I am also now taking orders and requests. Please give me something to do.

- Crocheting while watching the entire Band of Brothers mini series

- Crocheting while watching lots of other movies

- Shopping on Black Friday, which lead to getting into an argument with a Victoria's Secret sales associate about how big my boobs were, and that the Hello Bombshell bra should not be worn in public by anyone with boobs bigger than a B-cup. No one needs to look like they are smuggling torpedos under their shirt. But according to the sales associate, they do.

- Searching, unsuccessfully, STILL for Sally

- Searching, unsuccessfully for tickets to go home for Christmas

- Cheering for my little brother at his arena football game

And that pretty much sums up my 4-day weekend. How thrilling and exciting, no?

Most of the Time, I'm Embarrassed for Myself

Although it pains me to admit this...yes, I did attend a midnight screening of "New Moon" last Thursday.

I know, I know.

I've never gotten into the whole Twilight thing. I started to read the book a few years ago and got bored, so I never finished. I did see the first movie and spent most of the time being bugged about how much Kristen Stewart tucks her hair behind her ear. Maybe that's part of her character? I don't know, I just found it distracting. That and how she always looks half baked.

So I got invited to go with a big group of women for this midnight screening. They seated us in the theater around 10:30 and started raffling off all these prizes. First of all, I have never seen so many Bump-Its in one place before. It was like their mecca. I was fascinated. Second of all, pretty much everything being raffled off had to do with scrapbooking, so I was automatically not interested. But I decided that if I happened to win, I'd make the most of it. And every time I lost, I made the most of it too, by letting out loud, disgusted groans every time they called a number that wasn't mine. I'm such an awesome sore loser.

So when they called my ticket number, I'm not joking when I tell you that I screamed, whooped, jumped up and down, and ran down front as if I'd just been called down to The Price is Right. The only thing missing was an airbrushed "I Heart Bob Barker" tshirt. It was a nice change of pace from the other winners who simply raised their hands when they won. I won some kind of canvas ribbon organizer box thingy, which I promptly passed along to my roommate.

As for the rest of the movie experience? I have to quote the words of my favorite author, Jen Lancaster, who had an identical experience to mine:


"The second the movie started, the theater went quiet. No, scratch that - dead silent. I've never been in such a crowded place with so little noise. People weren't even shifting around in their seats. No one was pulling out cell phones to text message, nor was anyone whispering amongst themselves. I'm talking utter, rapt, undivided attention.

Which made it all the more obvious when the entire audience gasped as Taylor Lautner removed his shirt.

Which then made the entire audience laugh in embarrassment, and suddenly every Cougar for Cullen in that room started doing the kind of math that does not lead to any answer other than shame and possible jail time. The great irony is when Robert Pattinson went shirtless later in the film, the audience didn't let out a peep. You, with the pasty English belly - out of the way for the werewolf!"

The only thing that seemed to set my night apart from hers was the fact that right in the middle of a tender, emotional scene, someone in the theater busted ass SO LOUD that the entire audience started laughing. For about a minute. I, on the other hand, giggled into my hands for about ten minutes.

Because I'm just immature like that.

A Cry For Help

Seriously, I can't find him.

T.I.L.T. - Things I Love Thursday

For the past six months, I've been building a collection of Disney CARS for Li'l Mil. He is obsessed, and now, so am I. Last weekend, Bone Senior was in town and I was able to hand off a few cars for her to take back to Li'l Mil. Specifically she took Mack, Ramone, and a special edition blue Mater. Seeing his reaction warmed my heart.



Three delivered, about a hundred to go. Also, if anyone knows where I can find a Sally, let me know. Finding Sally has become the bane of my existance. She is one elusive bee-yatch.

T.I.L.T. - Things I Love Tuesday

I started working on this post yesterday, when it actually was Tuesday. Deal with it. And, actually there was only one thing I really loved about Tuesday...

Fighting the man and winning. Back in August, my poor windshield was absolutely destroyed as a result of humongous construction trucks doing work on the freeway. After four months of phone calls, incident reports, insurance records, and a very strongly worded letter, the contractor finally agreed to replace my windshield. This is a huge victory for me, because over the past four months of litigation, no one believed in me. Everyone told me this was a lost cause, that I was wasting my time, that the contractor would basically tell me to go jump in a lake. To which I usually shouted, "This might be a losing battle, but I'm NOT GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT!" And I'm pretty sure I actually did shout that, while shaking my fist, at least once.

What everyone seemed to forget was that I usually get my way. As Yanaj once counseled the teenager behind the counter of the water ice place here (who wanted to charge me fifty cents to add a ribbon of chocolate syrup to the vanilla custard. FIFTY CENTS!), "You might as well save yourself the time of arguing with her, because she's gonna get what she wants anyway." And four months later, I have a brand new windshield. A small victory for the little guy.

In other news, I was able to enjoy a weekend in Seattle for Yanaj's wedding. It was a whirlwind 72 hours, filled with rain, thunder, lightning, more rain, and Yanaj's wedding. Please to enjoy.

Let's start with the gifts I bestowed upon Yanaj, shall we?

The ENTIRE SET OF ROCKY DVD'S! Also, I don't know why Nicole is flipping the bird...
Sexual position of the day book. My favorite is called The Ottoman Bottoman.

I think the title says it all.

Me eating lasagna for the first time in seventeen years.

See, Yanaj? I really DID eat your stupid lasagna.

The three old roommates.

Nicole introduced me to "threading". Surprisingly painless, despite how the picture looks.

Yanaj and Paul

Emily, me, Yanaj, Nicole

Nicole, me, Emily

And this is absolutely my favorite picture from the whole weekend. Because no one looks good and I think all of our faces are hilarious. And yes, Paul is wearing spats.

Happy Birthday, Lady!

Wow, so it's really been a month since I posted last? I need to start making more interesting things happen to me, or else make the things that happen to me sound blog worthy.

But enough about me and my uninspiring life. Today is my BFF Lady's birthday, and I think it's only fitting that I take a moment to honor her.

Lady and I have known each other since tenth grade, and we kept in touch after high school, but we didn't really become close until the summer after my third year at college. I say "my third year" and not "my junior year" because it took me six years to graduate college. Shut up.

That summer, I'd moved back home with my parents and my second night there I was already going stir crazy. So I looked up old friends and Lady happened to be available. We went to the Strawberry Festival, and fate took its course.

She ended up getting me a job where she worked, and staged a fake engagement for me at the end of the summer when it was time for me to go back to school. Literally. I'd been hired under the assumption that I would be long-term, and since I needed the job, neither of us spoke up that I'd only be there for about two months. So when August came, she invented a fake boyfriend for me (Marco?), helped me pick out a fake ring from Walmart, and even sent me roses to work the day I announced that I would be moving to Arizona to join my rich fiance.

Yes, I'm serious. And everyone totally bought it.

But one of my favorite memories of Lady is our road trip to Memphis in August 2006. She wasn't even an Elvis fan, but she was up for anything, so we drove like a million hours from Philadelphia to Memphis to attend the official Elvis week festivities. It was hands down the best vacation of my life, and mostly because of Lady. Ok, it was like 50% Elvis, 50% Lady.

We made so many memories that week, and our stories have never ceased to make me laugh. The one I love to tell the most is how on the drive down there, we decided to use fake names for the whole time we were in Memphis. We spent hours, literally hours picking out names. Lady wanted her first name to be James, and we concluded that a female with a masculine name like 'James' definitely needed an extremely feminine last name to balance it out.

Once we reached that consensus, we spent a few minutes bouncing ideas off each other. Flowers? Cloud? No, no no. There was a pregnant pause as we both considered feminine options. And that's when Lady said the two phrases that still, to this day, make me pee a little.

Lady: James Fallopian Tube? James NuvaRing?

In the end, she went with Vader. James Vader. And spent the entire week correcting drunk hicks who kept asking, "James Spader? Like James Spader the actor?"

And every now and again, I get a text from Lady that says, "James NuvaRing".

And that is why I love her.

Happy Birthday, Lady! I wish I could be there to see you in all your mink-wrapped, leopard-skin gloved glory.

A Gmail Chat Between Friends

Bone Junior: I'm typing up our agenda for the meeting tomorrow and under my name I put, "Who was the more worthy opponent for Rocky: Apollo Creed or Ivan Drago?" That's my discussion item.

Yanaj: I think that's a good one to start off with. You should prepare some charts/graphs defending each contender.

Bone Junior: I think that Apollo's latent homosexuality puts him miles ahead.

Yanaj: That's true. Because he has to fight not only the man, but the stereotype.

Bone Junior: Truer words were never spoken.

And that's why I love Yanaj.

I Think I'm Going to Like it Here

What a crazy week! I started my new job last week, then spent most of the weekend catching up on sleep. Being at work at 7:30 am is an adjustment for me. I'm surprised they still want me to work there, given what a pleasant morning person I am. And by "pleasant morning person", I mean "don't speak to me until I've been awake for at least an hour and have Diet Pepsi in my system." Just ask anyone who's had the play-sure of living with me (Yanaj, Nicole, Bone Senior) or carpooling to work with me in the wee hours of the morning (Yanaj), or has had to wake up early for a baby shower with me (Erin). I'm sure they could tell wonderful tales of how much fun it is to be around me before 8 am.

Disirregardless of the schedule, the new job seems to be working out well so far. I was really sad to leave the construction company - I told everyone I didn't know what I would do, going to a job where I wasn't harassed on a daily basis, or where I wasn't given live spiders as gifts. Or where my floor mat wasn't nailed to the floor, upside down. Or where fake rats weren't put in my coat pocket. I had no idea what that kind of work experience would be like. I knew I would miss it though.

I got used to wearing jeans every day, and my Eagles jersey every Friday during football season. And now I have to dress up for work. Ugh. That in itself has proven to be an interesting topic of conversation at the new office.

My first day there, I was introduced to the girl who sits next to me. Her blog name will be...Victoria. You'll understand why in a minute.

I knew right away that I'd really like Victoria and that she'd be fun to work with. She's younger than me, probably 21-22, super cute, super friendly, and more than willing to give me the scoop on all the older ladies in the office. The first thing she said to me was, "Part of your job is to look at my outfit every day, and tell me if it's too short, too tight, or too low, okay?" Hmmm. Ok. Her comment got us on the subject of the office dress code, which spurred an interesting conversation.

Victoria: Everything I wear is either from Banana Republic or Victoria's Secret. Everything.

Bone Junior: Oh. Everything I wear is either from Ross or TJ Maxx.

Victoria: (Pause. Awkward smile.) Oh. You'll really get along with Carly then. She never pays full price for anything.

Blink. Blink.

This is when I paused and tried to figure out if her comment was really an underhanded insult. I hadn't met Carly yet, but I prayed that she wasn't some frumpy, dumpy, homely lady in a denim jumper or something. Luckily, Carly turned out to be very cute and dressed almost exactly like me. Score.

The next day, Victoria was wearing sky-high stiletto heels that were adorable, so I complimented her. 

Victoria: Thanks! They're Marc Jacobs. They were like, three hundred dollars.

Bone Junior: (Pointing to my new, black on black zebra striped flats) Do you like my shoes?

Victoria: Yeah! They're really cute!

Bone Junior: Thanks! They're Miley Cyrus. I got them from Wal-Mart for ten dollars.

I'm not even kidding. I was wearing Miley Cyrus shoes. And I don't even care because they're cute, and even better, they really were only ten dollars. Victoria told me that her entire outfit cost her over six hundred dollars. Mine cost less than twenty, altogether. 

Yes, I'm cheap and I'm proud of it. And I think I'm really going to like working next to Victoria. I need some new blog material.

Return

So, I'm alive.

It's been over a month since I've posted, and you'd think that I have a really good excuse for not posting, or at least some really exciting story about my travels or....something. Sadly, I do not. What I do have are tales of job hunting, interviews, wedding receptions, more interviews, even MORE interviews, and about a million rejection letters - which all arrived on the exact same day.

It's been a rough month. Let's recap.

Jobs applied for: roughly one million
Interviews: about thirty
Second interviews: probably ten
Rejection letters: do the math, minus one.
Friends who got engaged: 2
Best friends who got engaged: 1
Friends who got married: 4
Receptions I attended looking super hot to make up for the fact that I'm still single: 3
Friends who had a baby: 1
Friends who got pregnant: 2

New jobs accepted: 1

So there's the silver lining.

Grandmas Usually Like Me So Much

Last weekend, I went to a bridal shower for my good friend Nicole. Each guest was given a theme to follow for their gifts, and they were all "First's". First fight, first adventure, first spring cleaning, things like that. Naturally, I was assigned "First Night." Cake. I had this one in the bag.

I went shopping for some lingerie and found some really cute stuff. Nothing super scandalous; just teeny tiny bright pink thongs, a lacy black see thru neglige, and a zebra striped teddy with matching thong. Also I found a book of "365 Sexual Positions" and a bottle of chocolate syrup. I This was all fun stuff, but let's be honest; it could have been a LOT worse.

At the shower, the other person who'd been assigned First Night was this girl Jazz. Jazz is married to one of the supers that Nicole and I work with; and as much as I love Nicole, I was really glad that Jazz was at the shower to keep me company. The rest of the guests were grandmas, great aunts, third cousins...you get the idea. Pretty much all old ladies. Jazz and I sat in our chairs, just waiting for the moment when Nicole would open our gifts and die of embarassment.

So my gifts were pretty tame. Jazz, on the other hand? Pretty much went all out. She made this red silk bag out of an old prom dress and filled it with goodies - all of which were individually wrapped so that Nicole couldn't just look in the bag without pulling anything out. Brilliant, Jazz.

When Nicole started to open our gifts, I was more focused on the Grandma's than on Nicole. Because they? Were not amused. Especially when Nicole started slowly unwrapping a whip...then handcuffs... then lube...THEN a vibrating penis ring from Jazz's bag. Of course, Jazz and I were dying...but poor Nicole was mortified.

Afterwards, one particular Grandma came up to me, patted me on the shoulder and said, "You girls are cute." Pregnant pause, then a click of the tongue. "Disgusting...but cute." Exit Grandma, stage left. Cut to Bone Junior with mouth agape.

What! I have never been called disgusting by a Grandma before. I didn't know what to do except laugh. But seriously, she was offended? IT'S A BRIDAL SHOWER!! If I ever get married, I'll be offended if I DON'T get those kinds of gifts! Isn't that the whole point? Seriously.

Apparently after we left, Grandma went up to Nicole and said, "I don't think you should be running around with those girls." Well, it's not the first time I've been referred to as a bad influence - just the first time by a Grandma.

I wish I'd left the shower in a grand manner, a la Gloriana's mom. "Bye, Douchebags!" Oh well; see you at the wedding, Grandma!

God Help the Twelve-Year-Old Who Tries to Ruin My Movie

A few weeks ago, I went to see the new Transformers movie with my good friends Erin & Ryan. Two years ago, we'd all gone to see the first Transformers together, so it was only fitting that we make a tradition out of it.

The tickets were bought days ahead of time and we were able to reserve one of the sections of four seats off to the side. As the previews were starting, we noticed that there were six kids squished into the row of four seats in front of us. They'd put up the arm rests and squeezed their prepubescent bums into the too-small space. They'd probably bought their tickets late and could only find four seats all together, but they decided to buck the system and sit together anyway. They were already annoying me.

About halfway through the movie, the two boys in the seat directly in front of me started getting really obnoxious. One of them was purposely popping and snapping his gum with his mouth wide open so that it was making an incredibly loud noise. He'd pop, his stupid gaggle of geese would laugh, he'd pop again, they'd laugh again, lather, rinse, repeat. You get the idea. And you can probably picture the smoke that was starting to come out of my nose and ears.

Erin and I kept exchanging annoyed glances. I finally turned to her and hissed, "If he pops his gum One. More. Time. I am going to kick his seat so hard he won't know what hit him!"

I swear, no more than three seconds passed before the ass hat popped his gum again. And I also swear to you that I don't know what came over me in those next seconds. It was like something took over my body, and I physically reacted before my brain even had time to process what happened.

After I heard the final pop, both of my legs involuntarily cocked, bringing my knees all the way back to my chest before releasing the wrath of Bone Junior on to the back of the kid's seat. I kicked him so hard that he went forward out of his seat with a whiplash-like fury of momentum.

The best part was that I watched the whole thing as if it were in slow motion. The kid's dark silhouette being thrust forward against the bright light of the movie screen. He was like one of those crash test dummies getting rear-ended. It was a thing of beauty. It's just too bad he didn't choke on his gum. I also wish that he'd been holding a bag of popcorn, because to see popcorn flying through the air would have been golden.

The next best part was that Erin and I started laughing, and none of the kids even dared to turn around and face me. That's the power of taking a stand against obnoxious movie goers.

Feliz Cumplianos, Amigas!

Happy Birthday to my dear, dear friend, Heather. Today, she is thirty, flirty and thriving! Please tell me SOMEONE knows what movie that is from...and Happy Birthday to my dear, dear friend Andi! She is twenty-eight? I think? She is great with child and looks amazing.

Heather and I met in August 2001 when I moved into Southridge Apartments and she was already living there. That year of living together was adventurous to say the least. I literally have hours and hours of video footage of Heather and me doing pranks. Or, mostly me doing pranks to Heather. Like the time I set up the camera across from her bed, and I hid in her bed FOREVER waiting for her to come to bed. Seriously, I waited, squished down between the bed and the wall. Forever. Then when she came into the room, she totally didn't even react to me jumping up and scaring her. Totally anticlimatic.

Now that I think about it, a lot of my pranks have turned out that way. Just ask Yanaj. One time, I hung a life sized Elvis cardboard cutout from her ceiling, thinking that she'd freak out when she turned the light on because OH MY GOSH THERE'S A MAN IN A GOLD SUIT HOLDING A GUITAR HANGING FROM MY CEILING but no. Nothing. She just sighed and said, "Oh, Bone Junior!"

Then there was the time when I hid in Yanaj's closet, waiting for her to come back from the bathroom so I could jump out and scare her. At the time, Yanaj had a curtain covering her closet, so there I sat, crouched behind the curtain (which I was able to see through), waiting...and waiting...and waiting. When she finally came out of the bathroom, I was all ready to pounce, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand then she started taking her clothes off.

My eyes were squeezed shut as I contemplated what to do. Do I jump out and scare her now, when she's half undressed and then she'll think I was sitting there watching her get undressed which is totally creepy, and which I totally wasn't doing. And she'd totally be embarassed if she thought I'd seen her half naked (which she totally shouldn't be embarassed about because Yanaj once saw my entire bare ass reflected in a mirror by accident.) Or do I just sit and wait until she leaves the room and not even tell her I was in there, but then I wasted a totally good scare!!

I think eventually she left the room and I snuck out without her knowing. I'm sure I told her about it later though. It's just one more story for the books of Yanaj and Bone Junior.

So what started out as a celebratory birthday post for two of my friends has turned into a post about me. Hey, it's my blog. Happy birthday, Heather & Andi!

I Haven't Even Been In The Sun That Much; Or, Racial Profiling At It's Finest

Late Saturday night, I was driving home through some back neighborhoods when I saw the familiar flashing of police lights in my rear view mirror. But this time, I had no idea why I was being pulled over.

I put on my best innocent face and smile, prepared to plead my case to the officer as he approached my window...and started speaking Spanish to me. My face fell as I struggled to comprehend what was going on, and I managed to spit out, "I don't speak Spanish!!!"

The officer laughed and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just used to seeing Mexicans driving these kinds of cars."

Yeah.

It took a few seconds for all the racial profiling and underhanded snarky innuendos (in YOUR end-os!) to sink in. I gritted my teeth and gripped my steering wheel. It took everything in my power to restrain myself from hurling stereotypes at HIM.

It's a good thing he let me off with a warning (for not using my turn signal) or else I'd be crying foul in a court room.

The really sad thing is that I haven't even been in the sun that much this year. My tanorexia has been severely impacted by the rainy weather, as this is the first week temperatures have even hit the 80's.

I plan to spend all weekend at the pool, so that next time I get pulled over, I won't feel so bad about being called Mexican...again.